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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I smoked a pair of chickens on the Big Green Egg this weekend to use for dinners this week. During the fall/winter, I find that I do a lot more of "batch cooking" on Sundays where I cook a lot of food for the rest of the week.

I won't repeat the whole detailed process but it's my standard smoked chicken technique. For my fellow BBQthusiasts, I used a mix of cherry and hickory chunks and smoked them for a little over 3 hours at 250f until they hit 180f in the thighs.

So far we have used them to make

chicken salad for lunch yesterday

chicken alfredo for dinner last night,

and tonight's enchiladas

You could use leftover rotisserie chicken for this recipe but I find that the smoked chicken just gives it that little extra oomph. (Oomph is American southern dialect for "je nais se quoi".)

But what really blew us away was the homemade enchilada sauce. So many recipes call for canned enchilada sauce. I can tell you after tonight, I will never crack a can of that stuff ever again. We adapted Alton Brown's enchilada sauce and it made all the difference in the world. It is rich and rocks the taste buds with a bit of heat on the way down.

Mix all of the enchilada sauce recipes in a sauce pan and heat to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and reseason as needed with more salt and pepper. Cook another 15 minutes. This yielded about 3 cups of sauce when done.

Mix the chicken, beans, rotel, corn, and 1 1/2 cup of the cheeses in a large bowl. Place 1/8th of the mixture on each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in a 9 x 13 baking dish. If you can't find a 9 x 13 baking dish, a 13 x9 will do. Well, it will work if it is a right handed 13 x 9 inch model. I'm not sure about those left handed 13 x 9 ones, I don't have any.

Top with the sauce and remaining cheese. Cover and bake at 350f for 20 minutes.

Uncover and bake another 15 minutes.

Let rest 5 minutes, garnish with the cilantro and green onion, and serve.

Results:This was ridiculously good. Alexis and I both agreed that the enchilada sauce was the best we have ever had. You won't find a canned enchilada sauce in our house again.

So do you start doing a lot more "cooking for the week" on weekends when the temperatures turn South for the winter?

36 comments:

These enchiladas are killer and the sauce is "over the top"! Beautiful photos, too! Thanks for the great recipe! I love smoked meats and love to do batch cooking on the grill, too. It really makes cooking easier.

I spend my entire weekend cooking for the week. and yet, it still never seems to last the whole week through...and I end up eating sushi on Thursday and Friday. That's probably a not-so-subconscious tactic on my part just because I love sushi.

These enchiladas look absolutely perfect! Love that you went with homemade sauce. Alton is a genius 99.9% of the time.

YUM! I make a good home-made enchilada sauce, but your recipe looks amazing! It is so true that once you make your own sauce, you will never want to eat canned enchilada sauce again. I am definately going to make this!

I don't make enchiladas very often, but when I did, I used a recipe I received from a friend of mine...it really never was all that great..it seemed to be missing something... I know what now: Chipotle!!!! :) I'm definitely going to have to try this sauce! mmmmmmm......

I have to tell you, my husband makes delicious enchiladas and does indeed use canned sauce - but only one flavor of one brand and it's mostly red chiles. Also, he's a leftie and his enchilada pan is a left-handed model. Seems to work most of the time. This recipe looks and sounds so delicious, I'm going to attempt to talk him into moving from his comfort zone. Love the idea of using your smoked chicken!

Can't wait to try these Chris. I'm guilty of using the canned stuff, just because I haven't found a homemade sauce that we really liked.Wish I could grab a plateful of these enchiladas through the screen as I'm suddenly very hungry!

I bet these are amazing! I have a green enchilada sauce recipe that knocks the socks off any canned variety. The best red enchilada sauce on the market, in my opinion, is Frontera Grill. I love how you define "oomph" :) It's ok, Yankees use that term, too :)

And once again you've given me a recipe that will only help me into elastic-waist-pants faster...I'm destined to have them in my future, but at least I'll look the part when I start using words like Oomph! xo, Nan